Neues zu den „Digital Humanities“

Digital Humanities (DH) is a fashionable topic. At the same time it remains somewhat unclear which technologies and practices belong to Digital Humanities and which of these should be taught in the humanities curricula. Also, there is a critical discussion about how the use of DH-technologies is going to transform the humanities and whether this is desirable. In this review-article we take a look at a) some of the introductory and textbook literature on Digital Humanities, including printed as well as internet resources, and b) some of the literature and internet blogs that aim at a critical discussion of Digital Humanities. Finally, c) we also take a look at the discussion about the current state of Open Access, which to us seems to be a pre-requirement to fully exploit the potential the internet-technology for the humanities.
We find that by now a considerable introductory literature on DH-technologies exists, though at least the printed books are often collected volumes that provide a somewhat inhomogeneous reading experience. The same is also true for literature that critically discusses Digital Humanities with the notable exception of the book “Digital Humanities” written by David M. Berry and Anders Fagerjord.